How do newly promoted teams fare?

On Monday Brighton & Hove Albion rubberstamped their promotion to the Premier league. Their promotion has led to the annual questions and predictions of how will they fare next season. The cliche being that newly promoted teams always tend to struggle and go down. A perceived gulf between Premier league and football league in terms of finance is a major factor in how well or poor teams do. Brighton now have access to the cash bonanza that is the Premier league TV money. So just how do newly promoted teams fare in the season after promotion. For this I examined all the promotions in five European leagues going back to the 1991-92 season.

England
We'll start in England with the richest league in the world. Between 1991-92 and 2015-16 there were seventy-five promotions into the top flight. Of those seventy-five, thirty-three were relegated in their first season in the top division. Percentage-wise this translates to just under 45%. A fascinating figure given how pundits and experts usually predict doom and gloom for newly promoted clubs.
In the time period studied there has only been two occasions where none of the promoted clubs suffered relegation (2001-02 & 2011-12). While the 1997-98 season was the sole occasion where all promoted sides headed straight back down. Collectively forty-four percent is a fairly decent percentage for newly promoted clubs, further breaking down of the stats isn't pleasent reading for teams coming up via the play-offs however. Twenty-five promotions have come through this route and sixteen have resulted in relegation giving us a 64% going down rate.

France
Across the channel in France the figure of relegation after promotion is even more favourable. From 1991-92 to 2015-16 seventy-four promotions occured. Twenty-six of those ended in the agony of relegation, which leaves a 37% relegation rate.
In the time period France has yet to see a season where all promoted teams went down together. On the flip side there were five seasons (13-14, 05-06, 99-00, 94-95 & 91-92) where all promoted teams stayed clear of the trap door.
Going up as second tier champions in France greatly enhances your survival hopes. Of the twenty-five promotions in this category just seven went down which is just 28%.
However what is more astounding is that the third promoted side has been relegated 32% in the time period compared to 44% for the second promoted sides.

Germany
The Bundesliga's format over the time period saw the fewest number of promotions with sixty-nine. Twenty-four of which ended in relegation the following year. In the five leagues examined, Germany had the highest number of seasons where no promoted teams tasted relegation. A total of eight seasons (15-16, 09-10, 08-09, 06-07, 04-05, 97-98, 96-97 & 95-96). Only one season (92-93) saw all newly promoted sides go down.
Germany is also the only one of the five leagues in the time period where a newly promoted team went on to win the top division title. That was Kaiserslautern in 1997-98, a quite remarkable achievement. Kaiserslautern went up as second tier champions and only six of those were relegated in the time frame, a 24% relegation rate, the lowest of the five leagues.

Italy
Serie A had the most promotions in the time period with ninety-one. This was down to promoting four clubs each season from 91-92 until 03-04. Out of those promotions, thirty-three were relegated, for a relegation rate of just over 36%.
However an interesting observation from the statistics here is that going up as the second best team has the best chance of staying up. Just six in this category have been relegated which leaves a 24% relegation rate.
Serie A has had three seasons (07-08, 06-07 & 95-96) where none of the promoted clubs went down. Serie A has also not had a season in the time frame where all promoted teams went down. A special mention must go to 2005-06 where, due to league restructuring, there were six newly promoted teams, just one went down.
The best performance from a promoted team was Juventus' 3rd place in 2007-08.

Spain
La Liga had seventy-four promotions and just twenty-five of them resulted in relegation, for a 34% relegation rate. On seven ocassions (15-16, 13-14, 11-12, 00-01, 94-95, 92-93 & 91-92) all promoted clubs stayed up. 1996-97 was the only season that saw all promoted teams go down.
A pattern of fascination is that in the time period only four runners-up have relegated leaving an incredible relegation rate of just 16%, the lowest of any category in the five leagues.
In terms of best performing, that honour goes to Real Betis and their 3rd place in 1994-95.

Conclusion
The main point I wanted to prove here was that newly promoted teams do in actual fact have as good a chance as any of competing in the higher division. All of the claims such as 'they'll struggle as usual','they'll find the step up too difficult' etc, aren't really true. The statistics in a time period of twenty-five years shows that in all five leagues less than half of the promoted teams suffer relegation. The exact overall picture is one hundread forty-two relegations out of three hundread eighty-three promotions for a 37% relegation rate.
Statistically Spain has the best survival chances for newly promoted teams with the financial gap between bottom end La Liga and Segunda seemingly not insurmountable.
England has the worst survival chances at 44% but still enough to give hope. The reason for their high percentage is down to the massive gulf in wealth between Premier league and football league.
Germany was the only league of the five to remain in the same format throughout the time period. Their figure of 35% therefore represents an accurate rate. Italy's four up four down for more than a decade saw them with the most promotions. There might be a further format change in the pipeline given the very poor performance this season at the bottom.

Island teams hindered by location?

This past weekend Las Palmas won again at home with a 4-1 success over Real Betis. The result took Las Palmas onto thirty-eight points for the season. However things aren't as rosy when Las Palmas are away from the Canary islands. Of that thirty-eight points total, only six have come away from home. So are Las Palmas and other island clubs hindered by their location?

Las Palmas are the only island team competing in La Liga this season. The other big Canary island club, Tenerife, are challenging for promotion from Segunda. Tenerife haven't been in the top division since 2009-10 and since then have even spent time in the third tier. The Segunda this season also features Real Mallorca, although that might not be the case next season given the Palma club are struggling badly. No island team has ever won La Liga and Mallorca were the only one to qualify for the champions league back in 2001-02.

Over in Serie A it is all but mathematically confirmed that the island of Scilly will be without representation next season. Palermo's paltry total of fifteen points has them slipping into Serie B. Oddly however, Palermo have won twice as many points away from home this season with ten collected.

Barring a drastic combination of results, Sardinia's Cagliari will be hanging around the top division next season. They have won twice as many points at home than on their travels this campaign. Back in Scilly, this season could've featured two sides from the island had Trapani overcome Pescara last season. Trapani now find themselves engulfed in a relegation dogfight in Serie B.

Unless Corsica's SC Bastia can avoid slipping through the Ligue 1 relegation trap door this season, next season will be the first since 2010-11 that there will be no Corsican involvement in Ligue 1. Of Bastia's twenty-eight points, ten have come away from the Mediteranean island. Arch-rivals AC Ajaccio are mid-table in Ligue 2 with the majority of their thirty-nine points coming at home. The tiny Gazélac Ajaccio are also in mid-table after their debut top flight campaign last season.

The Portuguese archipelago of Madeira last season had three top division clubs. Next season it could very well be just one. Nacional currently occupy seventeeth place in the Superliga. There is no significant difference in their home and away records this season. Funchal rivals Maritímo however do have a significant difference. Their home record has yielded more than twice as many points than on their travels. Such a record sees them sitting in sixth.
União da Madeira find themselves fourth in the segunda and like Maritímo there is a twenty point difference in favour of their home record.
The only Azores side in Portugal's top two divisions, Santa Clara have won twelve more points at home than on their travels. The club however last graced the top flight in 2002-03.

In Greece there aren't many island teams in the Super league. Historically it was usually OFI Crete and Ergotelis in the top division but just the one Crete team features in the top flight this season and that's Platanias. Their home record is almost twice as good as their away record which places them in seventh place. No Crete club has managed to win the national title.
The holiday island of Corfu has PAE Kerkyra competing in the top flight this season after promotion last term. The club was formed from a 2013 merger of AO Kerkyra and Kassiopi FC. Last season Lesbos club Kalloni were relegated from the Super league and this season look like taking the drop into the third tier. Crete clubs OFI and Chania also feature in the second tier with the latter battling the drop.

Island teams across Europe have tended to struggle. In fact only twice have island clubs managed to wrestle the title off the mainland in Europe with Cagliari in 1970 and IFK Mariehamn's title win last October in Finland's Veikkausliiga. The logical and simplistic conclusion is that their island location hinders the chances of success. There are a myriad of reasons why, one of which is money. In a lot of cases these teams spend more on travel costs than anyone else in their leagues. Money that mainland teams can spend on players. The travel expenditure also deprives money to keep star players at these clubs. For example Las Palmas couldn't afford local talent such as David Silva, Juan Carlos Valerón, Jesé Rodríguez, Mauro Icardi and Sandro Ramírez, who all left the island at young ages.

As we have also seen with some teams, their records on their travels are significantly poorer than their home records which translates to rarely higher than mid-table finishes. If the away records could be improved then perhaps these clubs could buck the struggle trend associated with island teams.

At least we'll be in the next one

The recent international window all but sealed the hopes of Qatar making their world cup debut in Russia next year. Sucessive 1-0 defeats to Iran and then Uzbekistan leaves the maroons bottom of their world cup group with a very remote opportunity of making the play-offs. Automatic qualification is mathematically beyond them after the latest results.

Their impending elimination will mean Qatar in 2022 will be the first world cup hosts to have never qualified prior to hosting. There was genuine hope in the country that they had a decent chance of making it to Russia. The ease of which they qualified through round three of the Asian world cup qualifiers only fuelled those hopes.

Three defeats from their opening three games in the final group stage was just making the task near on impossible to recover. Uruguayan Jorge Fossati was drafted in as manager at this stage to try and rescue a campaign that was unravelling at an alarming rate. A 1-0 win at home to Syria at least got them off the foot of the group. A 2-1 victory over an experimental Russia in a November friendly seemed to restore some confidence. A game that saw them fall behind to an early Aleksander Kokorin penalty was rescued when Boualem Khouki converted a penalty of his own. Karim Boudiaf's second half strike being enough after Kokoron missed a late penalty.

Two decent results that were undone by a largely frustrating 0-0 stalemate away in China. A result that suited neither side that were attempting to rescue fading world cup hopes. Since that November qualifier, two very underwhelming results in friendlies against Moldova and Azerbaijan followed. Then came this international window of two further defeats.

At the time of writing, Fossati is still in charge and in defence of the Uruguayan it was an uphill task to rescue the campaign after that nightmare start. If anything this campaign has only highlighted just how short the team is of making any inroads for qualification, under the current format. The positives for Qatar are that, in theory at least, qualification for future world cups get easier. January's announcement of a forty-eight team world cup from 2026 was good news for Asia and the likes of Qatar but a lot of work is still required to ensure the team is of the required standard to qualify.

How they go about obtaining that standard is anyone's guess. Their favoured approach of using naturalized players from the domestic league has thus far fallen terribly short. It is also a strategy heavily critised by local media and fans with a 'lack of passion' being branded about recently.

The money the country has poured into youth developement programmes is yet to unearth a wealth of talent, if you excuse the pun. Young attacker Akram Afif is the first Qatari to play in La Liga with Sporting Gijón but with their home world cup less than six years away, a few more players like Afif will need to be developed.

Authorities in Qatar and the football association will be looking to make an impact at their home world cup but the present campaign doesn't bode well for those plans. Drawing with China at this moment in time is where Qatar are at in Asia. Their failure to qualify for 2018 could be a blessing in disguise to give them a reality check but at least they'll be at the next one.